MONSTER, The Netherlands (AP) – Dutch farmer Rob Baan has recruited high-tech aid to fight a pest in his greenhouses: palm-sized drones are looking for and destroying moths that produce caterpillars that can chew their crops.
“I have unique products where you don’t get certified for spraying chemicals and I don’t want it,” Baan said in an interview in a greenhouse bathed in the pink glow of LED lights that help them grow seedlings. His company, Koppert Cress, exports fragrant seedlings, plants and flowers to top restaurants around the world.
An avid adopter of innovative technology in his greenhouses, Baan turned to PATS Indoor Drone Solutions, a startup that develops autonomous drone systems such as greenhouse sentinels to add another layer of protection to its plants.
The drones themselves are basic, but are driven by intelligent technology, aided by special cameras that scan the airspace in greenhouses.
Drones instantly kill moths by flying into them, destroying them in the air.
“So he sees the moth flying, he knows where the drone is … and then he directs the drone to the moth,” said Kevin van Hecke, PATS’s technical director.
There were no moths on a recent Associated Press greenhouse visit, but the company released footage in a controlled environment showing how an error is instantly sprayed by a drone rotor.
The drones are part of a series of pest control systems in Baan’s greenhouses, which include other bugs, pheromone traps and bumblebees.
The drone system is the brainchild of former students at Delft Technical University who came up with the idea after wondering if they could use drones to kill mosquitoes buzzing around the rooms at night.
Baan says the drone control system is smart enough to distinguish between good and bad creatures.
“You don’t want to kill a ladybug, because a ladybug is very useful against aphids,” he said. “So they should kill the bad guys, not the good guys. And the good ones are sometimes very expensive – I pay at least 50 cents for a bumblebee, so I don’t want them to kill my bumblebees. ”
The young company is still working to improve the technology.
“It’s still a development product, but we … have very good results. We target moths and remove moths every night in an autonomous way, without human intervention “, said Bram Tijmons, CEO of PATS. “I think it’s a good step forward.”
Baan also acknowledges that the system still needs refinement.
“I think they need too many drones … but it will be easy to manage, it will be less,” he said. “I think I can make this greenhouse in the future, maybe with 50 small drones, and then it’s very beneficial.”